


Second Wind

by myrna123



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama/Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 05:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrna123/pseuds/myrna123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Second Skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Wind

Okay, people, it's happened again. I'm totally blocked (um, writerly speaking that is), and you know what that means! I must write and post a story to the list as quickly as possible-- No beta readers, no plot, no coherent characterization, just write, spell check, and post. Unfortunately, you, the reader, tend to pay for my writing woes. 

This story is sort of a sequel to Second Skin, I say sort of because some day, I intend to do a deeper follow up to that story. This one is more a workhorse, whose sole purpose is to get me writing and posting something! 

One more apology--no real sex in this one. I'm having a hard enough time just making the guys talk without introducing THAT into the mix! 

This story is in no way affiliated with UPN or Pet Fly Productions. The characters are their property, and this story is not meant to infringe upon their copyrights. 

## Second Wind

by Myrna  


Jim Ellison lay in bed and listened to the sound of the toilet flushing. In exactly 27 seconds, he would hear Blair's footsteps on the stairs, and ten seconds after that, his lover would climb into bed and nestle against him. He'd only be gone a total of 75 seconds or so, but Jim still begrudged every one of those seconds. They'd only been together a few weeks, but declarations of love and fidelity had already flown between them. But, Blair wouldn't let Jim give him a blow job without a condom, though he readily sucked Jim without one. He'd balked at the idea of intercourse the weekend they went camping and forgot to bring protection and only grudgingly allowed Jim to fuck him. He flatly refused to return the favor the next morning. 

Jim kept thinking he'd ask the kid why, but even though the two of them had always communicated surprisingly well, somehow the introduction of physical intimacy was interfering with those lines of communication. 

Tonight, when Blair had gone downstairs to dispose of the condom, Jim sat up, and his eyes happened to fall on the program from Teddy Abrahm's funeral service. In a roundabout way, Teddy's death from AIDS had precipitated the change in his and Blair's relationship, and Jim found himself wondering yet again whether or not Blair and Teddy had been lovers. 

He was studying the program so intently, he didn't hear Blair on the stairs, and he jumped in surprise when Blair sat down on the bed. He met Blair's gaze and felt oddly embarrassed. 

Blair nodded at the booklet and said quietly, "We were never lovers. Teddy and me. That's what you were thinking about, right?" 

Jim shrugged. "I wondered," he admitted. 

"I met him when I was a freshman. I graduated high school early, did I tell you that?" Jim shook his head, and settled Blair more comfortably against him. "I'd been taking college courses for almost a year, and started at the college right after I turned 17....I looked about 12. Teddy was the TA of my Intro to Psyche class." 

Imagining Blair as an overeager adolescent, Jim smiled as he planted a gentle kiss on his back. 

"It wasn't much of a stretch to figure out that I didn't really fit in anywhere. Teddy was my savior, man. Took me under his wing, let me hang out with him and his friends. He showed me how to, like, tone it down, you know?" 

"Actually, I shudder to think," Jim teased and chuckled when Blair elbowed him in the ribs. 

"I totally fell for the guy. You didn't know him before he got sick, Jim, but he was.oh, man, he was beautiful. Had a smile that warmed you up from a hundred paces. He was thistotally serene person, you know? Always centered; always knew where he was going and why he was going there. Man, I envied him that peace." 

Jim ran his fingers through Blair's curls and knit his brows in confusion. If Blair had loved Teddy, how could it be that the two were never lovers? A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. He couldn't imagine anyone *not* loving Blair, not wanting him. The idea was inconceivable. 

Blair sighed now, both in remembered sadness and because he missed his friend. "He said I was too young. Well, he was nice about it, said *he* was too old." Blair turned so he could look into Jim's eyes. "Teddy said he'd fall in love with me, and I'd end up growing out of him, and it would break his heart. It killed me at the time, but he was right, I was too young. Too immature. And I realized later that the way I felt about him was different than the way you feel about someone you lovesomeone you're *in* love withBesides, he'd met Brad Langley by then, and it was a moot point, I mean, talk about 'all she wrote!'But...it was kind of like how it had always been with Naomi. Teddy made sure Brad knew I was part of the deal, and then I had both of them. Sometimes, when I was lonely or...messed up about one thing or another, Teddy would let me spend the night...let me lay down in the bed between him and Brad... It was, like, the safest...dearest place to me." 

Jim smiled vaguely, but said nothing, hoping his face didn't reveal his consternation at the idea of a young Blair in bed with two adult men. 

He obviously didn't do a very good job of it because Blair hastened to clarify. "It wasn't like *that,* Jim," he said quietly. "I didn't even want it to be by then. It was just...nice. Safe. You know?" 

It was the second time Blair had used the word 'safe' to describe Teddy. Jim felt a rush of protective affection for his lover. He gathered Blair close to him, and kissed him and hoped the younger man knew that Jim's bed would provide that safety for him now.   
  


* * *

[Two Days Later] 

The sound of Blair's laughter was like a machine gun in Jim's ears. He grimaced then looked up from his computer to glare. Perched on the top of Detective Brown's desk, Blair and the detective were joking about which one of them the new woman in records was most attracted to. 

"Hey, Sandburg!" Jim called. "Some of us are trying to work here. Do you mind?" 

Blair's head shot up. Frowning slightly, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'What?' 

The little innocent act annoyed Jim even further. "Look, why don't you go play with your school friends so the grown ups can get some work done," he said snidely, knowing full well how Blair hated being treated like a kid at the station. He tolerated it from Simon and the other guys, but when Jim did it, it made him furious. 

Blair's eyes narrowed for a split second, then he smiled easily and shrugged again. "Hey, man, I'm gone," he said cheerfully, hopping to the floor and scooping up his pack. With a casual wave toward Brown and Rafe, and a parting shot about stopping downstairs to say good-bye to Vicki, Blair left without looking back. 

Jim returned to his report, but was promptly interrupted. "Jeez, Ellison, that was a little harsh, don't you think?" Brown said. "You've been riding that kid's ass the past couple of weeks. Ease up, man." 

Jim's heart stopped, sputtered, then limped weakly along. Brown had no idea just how right he was, did he? Shit, was that Brown's coded way of saying he knew what the two of them had been doing? 

"Brown's right, Jim," said Rafe. "You know something's wrong when Simon starts looking like Mr. Rodgers next to you." 

Jim swallowed with some difficulty and struggled to look nonchalant. No one suspected. Hell, how could they? He forced himself to breathe easier. 

Jim knew that ever since he and Blair had became lovers, he'd been concerned about someone finding out about it. 'Concerned' was probably an understatement. Obsessed was more accurate. He had been pretty short-tempered with the kid lately. Maybe he was going overboard trying to prove that things were the same as always between the two of them. 'Maybe' was probably an understatement too. 

"This isn't a playground," Jim said irritably and resumed punishing his keyboard. Blair was sure to be pissed when he got home. That seemed to be his perpetual state these days. *And whose fault is that, Ellison?* Jim asked himself. He sighed quietly to himself. Maybe he'd stop by the bike shop on his way home and pick up that innertube Blair needed. Maybe throw in the new pair of pedals Blair had been eyeing while he was at it. Jim pulled out his wallet to check how much cash he had on him. Jeez, this thing with Blair was sucking the life out of his bank account. He was already financing half of Cascade with his peace offerings, and they'd only been together three weeks.   
  


* * *

Jim mounted the stairs to the loft, guilt softening his steps. He quietly opened then door, stopping in the doorway to sense Blair's location. 

He was out on the balcony, sitting against the cool concrete wall. His headphones were blaring some song Jim didn't recognize, but it was angry and loud. Blair's eyes were closed, his head bobbing in time with the music; he was mouthing the words to the song. 

With a sigh, Jim dumped his bike shop wares by the couch and stood at the balcony's threshold, waiting for Blair to notice him. When the song he was listening to ended, Blair snapped the Walkman off and looked up at Jim. 

"Sorry about earlier," Jim said, then winced at the familiarity of the words. They'd seemed to replace 'hello,' lately. 

Blair nodded slowly, as if hearing what he'd expected to. "I'm tired of making excuses for you to myself," he said coldly. "I'm tired of telling myself you'll get over the shock or surprise or whatever emotion it is and just calm down, but nothin's changed, you know? Every morning I wake up and think today's the day it's all back to normal, but the next thing I know you're coming down on me like some asshole I've never even met--" 

"I said I'm sorry," Jim said plaintively, suddenly not in the mood for a lecture. Even if he deserved one. "Come on, babe, let's forget about it and eat." He grinned hopefully at the younger man. "Maybe you can screw some good behavior into me, right?" 

Blair was still nodding, his expression dark and foreboding. "When this first started, I couldn't believe you didn't throw me out on my ass," he said. "But now, I almost wish you had." Blair sighed at Jim's hurt look and tried to explain. "If it had just been that one time, maybe it wouldn't matter, you know? If we'd just fucked and forgotten about it.... I don't know, the way it is now, it just feels....dirty." 

Jim drew back, as if the words had dealt him a physical blow. "That's a shitty thing to say!" 

"Jim, you fuck me like a lover here at home, but out there, man, you can barely stand to look at me." 

"Look, just because I'm having a little trouble with this doesn't mean...." 

"Doesn't mean I'm your punching bag!" Blair angrily finished. "I'm sorry if you're freaked, man, but I'm not gonna stand there and let you crap all over me in public and then fuck me in private like everything's a-okay. God, how little self-respect do you think I have?" 

"I just get a little carried away," Jim tried to explain. "I feel like....like what we've done is so damn obvious... I guess I'm going overboard trying to show everybody nothing's changed, you know?" 

"But, see, by doing that, you're just illustrating that everything *has* changed. Jim, if nothing else, you've always been respectful of me, of my contributions. Now, you act like..." 

"Aren't you blowing this a little out of proportion?" Jim asked, trying to regain the offensive. "I make one little comment, and you...." 

"You make 'one little comment' every day," Blair said. 

"What do you want from me?" Jim angrily asked. "I'm not going down on my knees for you in the middle of the bull pen. You can get those adolescent fantasies out of your head right now!" Jim knew he was pushing a button, but at that moment he didn't really care. 

"I am *not* an adolescent!" Blair shouted. "And I don't *want* anything from you. You know you're fucking up or you wouldn't apologize to me every time you walk through the door!" 

Jim sighed, backing away. *Point taken,* his body language said. "I didn't think it would be this hard," he said aloud. 

"Yeah, loving me is a real chore," Blair bitterly replied. 

Jim sharply turned to glare at the younger man. "That's not what I meant," he barked. "Look, I've never done this with a guy, okay? Screwed around? Yeah, sure, no big deal. But not this! I just didn't think I'd feel so damned...endangered. I feel like any second now, everything's going to blow sky high." 

"Well surprise, Jim, I'm right there in the foxhole with you!" Blair said. "This thing blows up, I'm in the line of fire, too." 

"Maybe I'm not as strong as you, Blair. Maybe I care too much what other people think. I don't know, okay? I don't wake up and say, 'Great, I get to dump on Blair today!' I don't mean for it to happen, but I see you and....and you're acting so fucking *normal,* you know? Like I wasn't buried ass deep in you a couple of hours earlier and something just...short circuits, you know? And all of a sudden, I'm pissed and then I just go off." 

"What in the hell am I supposed to do with that?" Blair asked incredulously. "Seeing me makes you pissed off. Well great, Jim, that's just great. What do you expect me to do with that? Say, 'Okay buddy, treat me like shit then. I'll be waiting for you at home, legs spread!' No thanks, man. No thanks." 

"What do you want!?" Jim asked again, pacing nervously in the small confines of the balcony. "You're the one who said damn the consequences, let's just do it. You're the one who didn't care what happened in the morning..." 

"I guess I would have amended that if I'd known the next morning you were going to treat me like a five dollar hooker." 

"That's not fair," Jim said faintly. 

"No, it was more like the next afternoon," Blair dryly amended. "Jim, I'll admit we jumped into this without any real thought, but God, it just felt so damn *right.* Like everything that had ever happened to us helped lead us right here, to each other. I've never felt that way about anything or anybody, and I figured that even if the circumstances of our getting together were kind of extreme, it didn't matter because we would have ended up together anyway, no matter what." 

"I've told you I love you!" Jim said, an edge of desperation in his tone. "I fucking lay down for you, Blair. Turn myself over for you like I was born to it. Let you fuck me, for Christ's sake! You know how I really feel!" 

"I do until you say something nasty," Blair said. "Until you ridicule me or yell at me or roll your eyes at me. Until you ignore me and make me feel about two inches tall. Until you make your point loud and clear that big, butch Jim Ellison couldn't *possibly* be screwing his worthless little guide." 

Jim rolled his eyes without even realizing it. "Oh come on," he said. "You're laying it on a bit thick there, Chief. I never called you worthless." 

Blair shook his head, disappointed he couldn't get through to the man. "No Jim, you just made me *feel* that way. And I've gotta tell you, man, I'm not gonna live this way. File it under 'been there, done that.' I won't do it again." 

Jim sighed feeling oddly defeated. "I don't know what to do," he whispered. "If I could *make* myself feel differently, I would." 

Blair stood up to take his leave. "You know, Jim, you're not the first man to hate some guy because he made you love him." Blair looked out at the bay and sighed sadly. "Hell, man, you're not even the first one to hate *me*." And with that cryptic statement, Blair retired to his room and firmly closed the door behind him. 

After that, it was as if Blair had thrown some magical rewind button and the entire three-week interlude had never happened. It wasn't like they ever discussed it. Blair had slept in his old bedroom for a couple of nights and patently avoided Jim during the days. Jim left him alone, figuring the kid would come around eventually. He did, of course. Just woke up one morning and made a grand breakfast for Jim, chattered happily about a paper he'd just finished, the bureaucratic muddle he'd been wading through at the university, Rafe's upcoming poker party. Jim's relief quickly turned to confusion when, leaving the return to intimacy up to Blair's discretion, the intimacy never actually returned. 

Blair was his normal, jolly self, but he was the Blair of old, from before Teddy's death. Maybe the whole thing had been some bizarre expression of grief, Jim thought at first. A week later, he wondered if it had even happened at all. 

Jim felt like he was walking around in a perpetual state of confusion, but he couldn't deny the underlying sense of relief, as if a two ton pressure had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. He felt guilty for that relief, and for a few days was overly solicitous to Blair, which, upon further reflection was probably more hurtful than the anger he'd been hurling at the kid before that. 

Then somewhere along the line, that confusion and relief mutated into frustration and disbelief. It was just...over? Just like that? And without any of Blair's trademark discussion? Was he that easy to forget? Did his 'I love you' mean absolutely nothing to the kid? 

Jim kept waiting for Blair to say something, wondering if it was a game, determined he would outlast the grad student. But he cracked first, coming home from work one Friday evening to find Blair putting the finishing touches on dinner. Blair was happily telling Jim about his day, asking after Jim's, as usual a whirlwind of activity. His usual self. Same old Blair. 

"So that's it?" Jim heard himself blurt out. "We just never mention it again, and it's like it never happened?" 

With exaggerated care, Blair put down the wooden spoon he was using to stir the spaghetti sauce and pursed his lips in thought. He looked up at Jim and said quietly, "Can't we just look at it like, we gave it a try, it didn't work, no harm-no foul?" 

The casual, throw-away attitude hurt Jim, causing a surprising shock of pain. "Isn't it more like, Jim fucked up once, game over?" 

"It didn't just happened once," Blair began, his voice slow and careful. 

Jim snorted in exasperation and flopped back against the counter. "Practically," he muttered. 

Blair looked at his hands, choosing his words with care. "Jim, you tell me then, how many times should I let you slam me before I do something about it? How many times should I let you embarrass me in front of the people we both work with before you don't have any respect for me, *they* don't have any respect for me, and I don't have any respect for myself?" 

"Blair, it's not like that...." 

Blair shook his head at Jim's lame denial. "I've worked really hard for them to accept me, Jim. And one of the main reasons they do is because *you* accept me. They figure, hell if Ellison trusts him, he must be okay. And that's fine with me. If it's the Ellison Stamp of Approval that got me in, that's just great. And pardon me for being crude, but if it's one or the other, I'd rather have your respect than your dick up my ass." 

Jim brushed his finger against a smudge on the counter top, conscious of the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat. "Why can't you have both?" he mumbled. 

The question made a brief smile flash across Blair's face. "I don't know, Big Guy. I've been asking myself that from the start." 

It was quiet for a long time after that. Jim's internal struggle for understanding was almost palpable. He wondered if Blair had been planning this all along, if the grad student had somehow manipulated him into bringing up the subject, so he'd be put on the defensive. Jim knew it was an uncharitable thought. Hell, he *deserved* to be on the defensive. 

The room had grown dark by the time Jim finally began to speak. "It's like I'm two different people." His voice was hushed; his speech slow to give him time to pick the proper words. "Here at home...well, not even *here,* so much as anywhere where it's just us....then I'm...I'm so sure of who I am. Jim Ellison, detective, Sentinel, friend, lover. It's so clear to me. And then, someone, anyone enters the picture and all of a sudden, I have no idea who I am. Like suddenly I'm being judged, and duty and expectations and right and wrong are all mixed up. Nothing makes sense, and the only thing that matters to me is making sure everyone sees me the way I'm *supposed* to be. Does that make sense?" 

Perched on the coffee table, leaning forward as if to physically catch Jim's words, Blair nodded. The understanding shining from those blue eyes warmed Jim like flames from a fire. 

"You know, you were wrong, Chief. It's not you I hate, it's me." Jim quickly looked up and caught Blair's eyes. "Not for loving you, but for being too... I don't know...too weak to admit it, to let everyone know about it. I hate myself for caring what they think, for wanting their approval. I don't even know who in the hell 'they' are. But it was never you, Baby. You were just a convenient target." 

"Jim, everyone cares what 'they' think about them..." 

"You don't," Jim said. "You're always yourself, Chief. No matter where you are or what you're doing. You don't conform to what other people expect of you." 

"I don't?" Blair asked, lifting a skeptical brow. "Jim, I'm a doctoral candidate, at possibly *the* most politically charged institution in the free world. I conform all the time, in hundreds of different ways. The package may look nonconformist, but..." 

"No," Jim disagreed. "I've been with you at school and at the station, out in the middle of nowhere and here at home, and everywhere we go, you're essentially the same person." 

Blair smiled gently at the detective and reached out to touch his arm. It was the first time Blair had touched him in weeks, and Jim felt a swell of emotion in his chest. "You are too, Jim." 

"We wouldn't be having this discussion if that were true," Jim said, not moving, lest Blair withdraw his hand. 

Blair conceded as much with a simple shrug. "Well, I guess there's some truth to that. I think what we're looking for here is some perspective. I don't expect you to suddenly throw off 20 years of military and police training. Things like discipline and devotion to duty and meeting expectations are part of who you are, Jim. Part of the guy I'm in love with." 

Jim suddenly looked confused. "How can you....I mean, you were ready to just forget all of this, and now you're saying you love me? I don't get it, Blair!" 

"Okay, so I...overreacted a little," Blair admitted. "Maybe....maybe I was testing you to see if you could figure out what was going on inside your head....to see if you....if you cared enough to try and make this work." 

Jim looked troubled, but couldn't seem to articulate the problem he had with Blair's actions. 

The grad student shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying it was healthy, Big Guy. I'll totally admit I'm livin' in a glass house here." 

Jim smiled faintly at the endearment. "Why couldn't we just talk about this?" he wondered aloud. "Why couldn't I just tell you how scared I was?" 

Blair squeezed Jim's arm, and slowly knelt down on the floor in front of the detective. "Jim, we all carry around scars from our past. Your father made you feel like the only time you mattered was when you met his unreachable expectations. With me, it's that I made some stupid mistakes when I was a kid, and sometimes I fly off the handle to make sure I don't repeat them. But see, now that we know why we're acting this way, we can help each other *not* act this way. I mean, now that I know your acting pissed is really your being scared, there's no real reason for you to act pissed, right?" 

"I'm not sure it's that easy," Jim said, then laughed that Blair's convoluted logic now seemed oversimplified to him. 

"Jim, maybe your anger was unconscious before, but now it's not. Now you know why you're feeling that way, and you can reason your way through it. I mean, when I'm sitting around, busting balls with Brown, you *know* no one's thinking, 'I bet Ellison's screwing Sandburg.' 

Jim laughed again. "Yeah, you're probably right." His smile softened and he hesitantly reached out to touch Blair's hair. "Half the problem is when you're sitting around busting balls with Brown, I *wish* I was screwing you. That must be why I think they all know." 

Blair smiled and leaned into Jim's touch. He answered Jim's teasing with the utmost seriousness. "No one will know anything until you tell them, Jim. That part's always been up to you. You know that, right? You trust me about that?" He had leaned in so close to Jim's face that his lips brushed against the detective's as he spoke. 

"Yes," Jim whispered his answer, straining to control his growing arousal. "I trust you, Blair. Always." 

Apparently, Blair didn't want him controlling that arousal, because the younger man leaned forward and soundly kissed Jim's mouth. 

Rather than igniting an inferno, though, that first kiss enveloped Jim in a beautiful, dream-like sense of calm. He wrapped his arms around Blair and held him close, and when he pulled back, he gently covered Blair's mouth and kissed him back, apology and promise, heart and soul offered to the younger man without hesitation. They were accepted with the same gentleness and reverence in which they were offered. 

Jim broke the kiss with a sigh of relief. He kissed the top of Blair's head and held him to his chest, wondering if his thundering heart beat was as deafening to Blair as it was to himself. 

"I'm sorry," Blair said suddenly. 

"You're sorry?" Jim said. "For what?" 

Blair pulled back so he could meet Jim's eyes. "I should've handled this differently...." 

Jim shook his head. "I shouldn't have given you anything to handle." 

Blair shrugged. "Even so, I shouldn't have played head games over it. I don't want us to be like that. If something's wrong we should talk about it and fix it. If we have something to say, we should say it." 

"Agreed," Jim said, then playfully grinned at the younger man and tested the new rule. "Kiss me." 

Blair smiled and leaned in. "Ahh, man, with pleasure!" 

"Definitely with pleasure," Jim said a little while later. 

Blair wasn't above testing the rule himself. Wrapped in Jim's strong arms, he rested his head on his broad shoulder and whispered, "Love me." 

And Jim tightened his hold and answered, "With pleasure."   
  


* * *

Several weeks later, Jim still felt tentative; as if not only Blair, but   
the world around them demanded that he proceed with caution.   
But he was determined that they would make the relationship work,   
and that meant when they had something to say, they said it.

Jim had been thinking hard about some of the things Blair had told him and even harder about some of the things he hadn't. 

"Blair, can we talk about something?" It was late in the evening, but Blair was working diligently at his computer. 

Hands flying across the keyboard of his laptop, Blair nodded absently. Finishing with a flourish, he saved his document, then met Jim's gaze. "What's up, Big Guy?" 

Jim sat down next to him and slightly shrugged his shoulders. "You said something awhile ago, and I was just wondering if you would tell me what you meant." 

"Sure," Blair said with a smile. 

"When we were....well, when I was being a jerk, you said something about 'been there, done that.' And then you said something about making sure you don't repeat mistakes you made when you were younger. Would you tell me what happened?" 

"Why do you want to know?" asked Blair, seeming more curious than anything else. 

"I don't know," Jim said honestly. "I just keep thinking about it, wondering....feeling like I should know. You don't have to tell me, I was just...well, I just hoping you would." 

Blair looked thoughtfully at Jim, then quickly made a decision. "When Teddy and Brad first got together, I was really...pissed, and I did something stupid..." He looked up at Jim like he was expecting the prerequisite dig, something along the lines of 'What's new,' but Jim was just looking at him. "I started sneaking in to the bars down on Colson Street." Another pause, this time to check for disgust or outrage from the proper detective. Jim cocked an eyebrow and grimaced, but his face showed concern more than anything so Blair continued. "I was going to show Teddy, you know? Show him how much I could make other guys want me, show him I didn't need him for anything...show him I didn't care that he wanted someone else instead of me..." 

"Is that why you're so insistent about wearing a condom?" Jim asked, brows furrowed with worry. 

Blair shrugged. "I wasn't always careful. Wasn't always safe. I know it's been years, and I've always tested clean, but there's still this nagging thought inside me that I could still have it. That maybe...maybe I'll be punished for being so stupid." 

"What made you stop hanging out on Colson?" 

Blair grinned ruefully. "Some friend of Teddy and Brad's saw me and ratted me out. Teddy freaked, man. Stormed over to my place, practically shook my head right off my shoulders. I think they knew then that Brad was HIV positive, so Teddy was way upset that I was messing around." 

"So you stopped, then?" 

Blair ducked his head. "Well, yeah, but only because I'd met someone." 

"Someone Teddy didn't like?" Jim guessed. "At least you were safe...out of the bar scene." 

Blair shrugged away Jim's comment. "Teddy and Brad thought the guy was too old for me, too experienced, too demanding, too everything. They couldn't talk to me though. I was 18 and stubborn and stupid. Thought I knew it all. Accused them of being jealous because my lover was famous and..." 

"Famous?" Jim asked, surprised by the revelation. "Would I know him?" 

Involuntarily, Blair's eyes flashed over to the Jags hat hanging on the coat rack. "Yeah, you'd know him," he said. "He, uh....he asked me to move in with him, told me he'd pay my tuition, he bought me all this awesome stuff. He was really cool at first." 

"At first," Jim repeated the qualifier. "Then what happened?" 

Blair eyes drifted to the past. He shrugged and shook his head. "And then he changed. Or maybe he just dropped the act. I still can't decide which. He traveled a lot, and he started accusing me of messing around on him when he was gone.... His moods were all over the placeone day he couldn't be generous enough, the next day he was cutting up the credit cards he'd given me. He'd say I was going to go to one of the tabloids and out him for money, that he couldn't trust me. He got more and more violent. Pushing me around, then hitting me some. I knew I had to get out of there, but he had me in that dynamic, you know what I mean? Knock me around, then tell me how sorry he was, then the honeymoon phase where he couldn't be nice enough, and I'd start thinking maybe it was over and then it would start building and building and you could feel the tension everywhere, and I'd do something knowing it would tick him off, just so he could belt me and be done with it." 

Jim's face had gone stony. "Who was..." he started to say, before clamping his jaw shut. "What happened?" 

Blair grinned. "My heroes," he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Teddy and Brad knew something was going on. I mean, Teddy was a psyche prof after all, not that it took a brain surgeon to know what was happening. Man, he tried *everything* to get me to leave, but it was like, I couldn't admit, even to myself, how badly I'd fucked up....but then...well, then he threatened to call in the big gunNaomi." 

"She didn't know?" 

"Oh man, are you kidding? She had no idea I was living with the guy. She'd met him once and, like, totally hated him. Thought he was a self-centered creep. Man, if Teddy told her I was getting bashed around....well....jeez, Jim, *you* know what she would have done." 

Jim's grin matched Blair's. "Yeah, I can imagine. So you got out of there, right?" 

"Jim, you know *nothing's* that easy with me. Teddy and Brad were there when I told him I was leaving and he *freaked,* man. Totally ballistic. Tried to jump me, with Teddy and Brad right there. So Teddy goes and pulls a gun on the dude! Man, that freaked me out more than getting hit! It was, like, a major scene, man, straight out of NYPD Blue, you know? I mean, there's Teddy, holding a gun on the guy and screaming at him to leave me alone, and Brad jumps on the guy and starts knocking the shit out of him and hollering at me to get behind Teddy and then, it's totally silent, and Teddy looks the guy right in the eye and says, 'You touch my kid again, and I'll kill you,' and punctuates the sentence by firing a shot into the guy's bookshelf!" 

Jim's eyes were wide as Blair finished the story. Knowing Blair's penchant for hyperbole, Jim was looking closely for signs that the kid was exaggerating, but there weren't any. Jim shook his head. "And here I thought *I* was responsible for the calamity in your life," he said. 

Blair laughed shortly. "Heck no, Big Guy. Calamity and I are old friends." 

Several times that evening, Jim tried to coax Blair into revealing the name of his former nemesis, but the younger man cheerfully refused. Jim had jokingly promised not to hunt the fucker down, but Blair wouldn't budge. 

Lying in bed that night, Jim gently asked again, "Why won't you tell me who it was? Are you really afraid I'll go after him?" 

Blair smiled fleetingly and shrugged. "I think I'm more afraid that you won't," he admitted sheepishly. "It doesn't matter who it was, Big Guy. He's so not worth the effort." 

Jim carefully, gingerly, wrapped Blair up in a tight embrace, as if the grad student had just recently been attacked. It was hard to ask the next question, but Jim had to know. "Blair, did you think....when I was being a shit like that....did you think I was going to start hitting you?" 

Jim recognized Blair's silence as a thoughtful one, not a reluctance to answer, so he waited patiently for him to speak. "No, I never thought that," he said finally. "But Jim, the psyche's a really delicate thing. It scared me to think that how you made me feel might be how I started seeing myself." 

"I'm sorry," Jim said quietly. 

"I know," Blair whispered back. 

"It won't happen again, Blair." 

"I know," was the drowsy reply. 

"I love you," Jim whispered. 

More awake than asleep, Blair answered, "I know, Jim." He guided Jim's head down to rest on his chest, sighing when Jim nuzzled the soft hair with his cheek. "I know."   
  


* * *

The next morning, Jim woke up at the usual time, planning to run a quick ten before work. He slipped out of bed and put on running shorts. He was tying his shoes when Blair unconsciously registered his absence and woke up. 

"Mmm, hey," the younger man muttered. 

Jim looked up and grinned. "Hey," he said softly. "I'm just going to do an easy five up to the pier and back. Wanna come along?" 

"Yeah, right," Blair snorted, only half awake. "Who do you think you're in bed with again?" 

"You," Jim said, leaning down on the bed to kiss his cheek. "My Blair." He kissed Blair's forehead. "My beautiful, sexy, wonderful Blair." A kiss punctuated each adjective. Blair squirmed and chuckled before shooing Jim off him. 

"Keep it up, Big Guy," he ordered, then opened one eye and said pointedly. "The sweet talk, I mean." 

Jim laughed, kissed Blair one more time, then headed out for his run. 

An hour later, winded, sweaty, and energized, Jim burst through the front door. He tiptoed upstairs, so quietly even a Sentinel would have been undisturbed. Blair was still fast asleep, lying on his back, lips slightly parted, his face smooth and untroubled. Jim's heart swelled with tenderness at his young lover. *Lover.* He could use the word again, he realized, smiling at the thought. 

He laid the red rose on the pillow next to Blair and crept back downstairs to take a shower. 

He kept an ear tuned to the upstairs and heard Blair come awake and make a curious sound. He grinned at Blair's knowing chuckle and heard the younger man take a deep whiff of the flower's smell. Jim hurried through the rest of his shower and bounded up the stairs, dripping wet. 

"I died and woke up in a Harlequin novel," Blair quipped, sitting up against a pile of pillows. 

Jim smiled at him. "I bought it from the flower guy in the park." 

Blair grinned and twirled the stem thoughtfully. 

Jim let his towel fall to the floor and climbed into bed, straddling Blair. "I told him it was for my boyfriend," he said, with such uncharacteristic shyness, Blair actually looked embarrassed. "My sexy, wonderful, beautiful boyfriend." 

Blair lifted a single eyebrow at his lover. "What did he say?" 

Jim grinned at the sudden memory, then imitated the grizzled old voice of the vendor. "Not that long haired punk you're always hanging around with!" 

"What did you say?" 

"I said, 'his hair's not *that* long.'" 

Jim laughed, when Blair suddenly wrapped his arms around him and pulled him down on top of him. He rolled over and kissed Jim hard on the mouth. "Oh man, no way!" Jim groaned, when Blair began energetically grinding against him. "I've already worked out once this morning." 

"That was just the warm-up," Blair said, eyes blazing with heat. 

"I already showered!" 

"I promise to lick you clean when I'm done." 

Jim sighed, resigned in defeat. "Well, okay. But only because I love you." 

Blair grinned and laughed, saying with that wonderful, sexy, beautiful voice of his, "Oo, pretty last words, Big Guy. Pretty last words."   
  


* * *

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